EDF's (Electricité de France) power stations : the driving force behind regional development

In order to facilitate integration into their host region, the Gravelines and Civaux nuclear power stations adopted very different strategies. Gravelines, situated in the heart of the Dunkerque industrial estate, created a close partnership in relation to the maintenance of the site, with service providers and other principals, with the aim of promoting talent both inside and outside the region. Civaux, situated in the middle of the countryside thirty-five kilometres from Poitiers, actively supported a policy of helping to create jobs in order to offer employment to people once the construction of the plant was complete : it has since set out to encourage combined operations in the southern part of the Vienne département by pooling its talents. Drawing on their experience in the field, Richard Lucarini and Gilbert Wolf discuss the successes, but also the limitations of their actions in the framework of EDF's policy of supporting local development, which, as Jean-Pierre Gallen underlines, includes as many ways of doing this as there are sites.